Did you know that 68% of employees leave an organization due to personal reasons?
These results often surprise employers who expect that the more significant reason to be professional advancement (66%) or better pay (65%). To keep excellent employees happy and engaged, an organization will need to staff their human resource (HR) department with skilled workers.
At the top of this department, there has to be a seasoned HR manager whose sole focus is employee satisfaction.
But what exactly does an HR executive do?
1. Job Description Development
One of the fundamental roles an HR executive plays is putting together a role within each function. Without a proper assessment of the part an employee has to play, the team won’t deliver its best.
An HR executive’s role here is to assess the job that needs to get done and map that onto the requisite character traits. For example, if a position calls for customer-facing interaction, an HR executive knows they will need to look for a good communicator.
Once the HR executive understands the demands a role calls for, it’s their task to put together the ideal employee persona. It’s from this profile that the organization will eventually make a hiring decision after checking out candidates.
2. Recruitment
Once an HR executive understands the position and identifies the skills necessary to succeed, they will move onto hiring. Any HR executive must hire the right person, as a lot is at stake.
If the executive hires a candidate that’s a proper fit, the recruit holds the potential to revitalize their organization. However, if an executive happens to make a wrong hiring decision, it can erode the culture and result in an expensive recruiting process.
A wrong hire does not only cost the company financially. They also disrupt productivity and trigger a re-hiring process that consumes more time, money, and intellectual bandwidth.
During recruiting, the HR executive will be in charge of driving the screening process to pick out the most desirable candidates. These candidates will then go through another round of interviews for further assessment.
In consultation with other departments, the HR executive will then make a final hiring decision. From there, their task will involve onboarding the new hire to help them get better acquainted with the firm.
3. Staff Development
You’d think that once the hiring process is over, HR executives are off the hook. Every HR executive is responsible for helping existing employees grow in their roles.
To help the staff continue upskilling, an HR executive will invest time and resources in bringing in the appropriate training for each department. If there are employees that need closer attention, it’s the HR executive’s responsibility to oversee their coaching.
A competent HR executive will also take charge of managing employee performance as part of their development track. To this end, every quarter or month will call for staff reviews. The HR executive will discuss the positive aspects of the job and how to improve each employee’s performance.
4. Overseeing Compensation and Benefits
Compensation and benefits form part of the core line items for any organization. If no one pays careful attention to these costs, it’s easy for them to spiral and eat into the bottom line.
On the flip side, if the firm does not continually keep an eye on benefits and compensation, it won’t offer the right value proposition. In the end, exceptional staff will leave in droves to look for better opportunities.
Maintaining this tricky balance is a core part of an HR executive job description, and it calls for wisdom and skill. A seasoned manager will have the skills to leverage compensation and benefits in a way that stimulates optimal productivity.
An HR executive will have to delve deep into thinking through policies and terms tied to compensation and benefits that the firm will adopt. It will then lie on the HR executive to implement these policies and terms constructively.
For example, an HR executive will be instrumental in shaping the firm’s approach towards salary advances. A good HR executive will know how to pay attention to the rate at which employees seek advances and the factors influencing this need.
If the manager realizes that this is a core need, then they can lobby to implement programs that help employees access their wages so far, as this article details.
Not only will the executive save the company from higher expenses, but they will also boost staff morale.
5. Succession Planning
Employees value the potential for growth within an organization. Without room for growth, all the staff will feel is that they are a means to an end. And the moment employees decide their relationship to any organization has no give and take, they will start plotting their exit.
In fact, an overwhelming number of people looking for new jobs now consider learning and development a requirement for an attractive offer. As an HR executive works hard to nurture employee growth, they will invariably face the other side of that coin – Succession.
Whenever an employee moves on to their next role within the firm, someone has to pick up the slack. If this process is not managed prudently, the fallout can significantly impact the firm and cancel any potential upside.
It’s the HR executive’s job to ensure that succession flows smoothly from one worker to the next. That includes ensuring the employee leaving a role does not disrupt the culture and productivity while the incoming worker is the right fit.
Should some roles have a higher rate of turnover, an HR executive will need to figure out how to anticipate and manage that trend.
An Expert HR Manager Will Bring the Best Out of the Team
Overseeing employees is no easy task. For an organization to get the best from its staff, they need to feel purposeful. The moment employees perceive their only value is as wheels in a cog, they’ll disengage and eventually leave.
It takes an exceptionally skilled HR manager to ensure that employees keep buying into the organization’s vision and feel their contributions matter. Only then will productivity surpass everyone’s expectations.
Bringing on the right workers is only part of the journey – You need to manage them well to succeed. Our website offers leading-edge business information to help you better manage your team. Check out more of our articles for lessons and insights and lessons that can help you serve your employees and get the best from them.
